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“Because of the rent, and because...” I don’t want him to notice that I gotfired.Tears leak into the corner of my eyes. It’s then I realize, I’m so embarrassed. I don’t want him to start thinking of me as the woman who couldn’t handle her own life. We’d turned it into a sexy game, and now, in the space of a day, it’s not a game anymore. I don’t understand why everything feels like it’s crumbling all at once. “I just can’t.”
Suzette says all the right things a friend would, but I don’t hear any of it. All I can think about is how I’m going to have to explain to a man like Graham, someone who works their ass off day in and night out, that I got fired because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I confess to Suzette as I try to calm myself down. “I would have willingly quit if he hadn’t fired me. After all of these years, I don’t have a job.” My breath catches and I try to pull myself together, I try to get my emotions to make sense. I don’t have a passion like he does. The voice in the back of my head tells the truth.I’m just not good enough for a man like him, for an apartment like that, for a life like this. I’m a fraud.My phone beeps. Another call is coming in.
“I have to go,” I tell Suzette.
“Call me later,” she says, just before I answer the next call.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.” Kenzie’s voice wobbles, like she’s been crying, and my stomach sinks. I close my eyes, pressing my back to a building as the city passes me by. This is the worst timing. I can barely exhale as she continues. “Listen. I know you just started a new job, but I need help. The loan company said they’re going to start taking money from my paychecks, and I need all of it for the rent, so I need—”
“You’ll have to move here, then. You’ll have to just…I don’t know, Kenzie. You’ll have to come here, and we can figure something out.”
“I can’t do that. Youknowthat. My whole life is in Chicago, and it’s not like I can just rent a car—”
“I don’t know what else to tell you!” I try my best not to raise my voice at my cousin, but my throat feels like I swallowed a rock and my eyes were burningbeforeand there’s just nothing I can do. “I got fired today, Kenzie! I got fired. I don’t have any extra money. I have to take drastic measures myself, so the only way I can—”
“Mom’s sick,” Kenzie says, her voice cold.
“What?”
“My mom is sick. That’s why I haven’t asked her. That’s why I’m always askingyou. Do you even care?”
“Kenzie.” I lean against a lamppost, taking deep breaths. “What do you mean she’s sick?”
“She has cancer,” she tells me, and my entire body goes cold.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
“I am too,” she says, and she’s choked up.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because she said not to tell anyone. It’s treatable, just expensive. She’s going to be okay. She will…but also because I wanted to handle it,” she tells me. “I wanted to figure out a way to solve it on my own. And I couldn’t, obviously, or I wouldn’t be calling. But it’s not like I can callherbecause she’s dealing with so many medical bills that she might lose her house, too.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. A driver in traffic cuts across to the opposite lane, almost hitting another car, and horns blare. “I’m sorry, Kenzie.”
It’s not enough, just to apologize. I’m stick to my stomach at the thought that my aunt has been sick…and nobody told me.
They probably didn’t tell me because I got a whole new life with Kevin and disappeared into it and thought my cousin needed to getherhead together.
I guess she’s not the only one.
“None of this is your fault,” Kenzie says in a voice that tells me itismy fault, at least a little. “I know how hard you worked to get where you are. I just thought…” She lets out an angry sigh. “I thought you’d understand, because of that.”
“Kenzie.” I rub at my forehead with the back of my hand, blinking back tears. “I just need some time. I’ll figure something out, I swear, I just can’t do it right this minute. I haven’t even gotten home from the office yet.”
“No.” She takes a deep breath, and I can almost see her straightening her back. “I’ll figure this out. You deal with your stuff. I’ll deal with mine.”
“Kenzie, please—”
My cousin hangs up.
I don’t blame her for how she feels. I couldn’t possibly blame her for that when I’ve felt the same way so many times. But this, on top of getting fired, on top of thinking that I’d avoided disaster…
It’s too much. I’m quick to text my aunt that I love her and miss her. I almost tell her I know but I don’t. Instead I just let the tears out.
She answers back with a text telling me she misses me, and she hopes I’m living my big-city-life dreams and maybe one day she can come down to see me. I have to read it all through glassy eyes. We’ve never been a super close family, but I that doesn’t mean I don’t love them all.
